Foreign and International Law Materials

Research Guides | Country Background Information | International Subject Collections |
Treaties | Foreign Laws | Foreign Case Law | European Law |
International Organizations(IGOs) | Trial Subscriptions

​I. Research Guides

LLRX
Collection of pathfinders and guides authored by law librarian experts from around the world; materials are organized by subject and jurisdiction.

Globalex
Collection of pathfinders and guides authored by law librarians from around the world; this website is sponsored by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU

​II. Country Background Information

Baker & McKenzie
In depth guides on doing business in a foreign country presented by a global law firm

Export Portal at Department of Commerce
Practical information geared towards U.S. companies wishing to do business overseas

JuriGlobe World Legal Systems
Helpful use of internet technology to illustrate and explain the legal systems of the world graphically via color coded interactive maps

University of Colorado Country Information
Valiant effort by UColorado librarians to gather links to all US government information on other countries (including i.e. World Fact Book, State Department Country guides etc.) at one website

​III. International Subject Collections

    A.  Human Rights

HUDOC
The European Court of Human Rights HUDOC Portal is a powerful, user-friendly information system which provides free online access to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, the European Commission of Human Rights and the Committee of Ministers. 

Natlex
Database of national labour, social security and related human rights legislation maintained by the International Labour Organization's (ILO's) International Labour Standards Department.

Universal Human Rights Index of the U.N.
The Index contains the observations and recommendations of the seven UN human rights treaty bodies including: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD); Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR); Human Rights Committee (HRC); Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Committee against Torture (CAT); Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW). The comments by governments on the concluding observations of the treaty bodies and the special procedures of the Human Rights Council can also be found in the database. These materials are now searchable by keyword, right, country and body and the researcher can go directly to the relevant paragraph(s) of the document. Also, for the first time, observations and recommendations of the independent experts are now interlinked.

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
This website is a comprehensive collection of relevant treaties and other international legal materials on war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and terrorism.

    B.  Trade

WTO Analytical Index – Guide to WTO Law and Practice
The WTO Analytical Index is a guide intended to assist in the understanding of the legal interpretation given to, and the application of, the WTO Agreements by WTO dispute settlement panels and the Appellate Body, and decisions adopted by other WTO bodies. Its principal objective is to make WTO law and jurisprudence more understandable and accessible to the reader by identifying how the legal findings of these WTO adjudicatory bodies and the relevant decisions of the numerous WTO committees relate to any given provision of the various WTO Agreements.

U.S. Trade Representative Bilateral Investment Treaties
The U.S. bilateral investment treaty (BIT) program helps to protect private investment, to develop market-oriented policies in partner countries, and to promote U.S. exports. A collection of BITs to which the U.S. is a party is available at the USTR website.

 UNCTAD Investment Instruments Online
The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development was established in 1964 to promote the development-friendly integration of developing countries into the world economy.  UNCTAD has been actively monitoring the increase in the number of bilateral treaties for the promotion and protection of foreign investment (BITs). Its Compendium of International Investment Instruments is now a database of Investment Instruments Online, which is searchable by keywords, country/region, categories (multilateral, regional, bilateral, non-governmental and prototype instruments) and dates. It seeks to provide a faithful record of the evolution of instruments relating to investment.

ICSID
ICSID is an autonomous international institution established under the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States with over one hundred and forty member States. The ICSID Convention sets forth ICSID's mandate, organization and core functions. The primary purpose of ICSID is to provide facilities for conciliation and arbitration of international investment disputes. BITs are also available via the ICSID website.   

ICC Dispute Resolution Library
This Library contains more than 1000 documents from the International Chamber of Commerce International Court of Arbitration.  Please contact the reference desk for username and password.  This library is only available to students and faculty.

 KluwerArbitration
This service includes decisions and awards from the ICJ, ICC, ICSID and PCA (Permanent Court of Arbitration). Register via Intelliconnect to obtain user i.d. and password.

Worldtradelaw.net Dispute Settlement Commentary 
The WTO Dispute Settlement Commentary service (DSC) is a comprehensive legal tool for researching WTO Panel and Appellate Body Reports and WTO Arbitrations. In addition to providing access to the full text of WTO panel reports, this service includes commentaries which contain background information and summaries of panel findings.

    C.  Intellectual Property

WIPO
The World Intellectual Property Office provides access to national IP legislation through CLEA (Collection of Laws for Electronic Access). The WIPO website provides access to multilateral IP treaties as well.

    D.  Environmental Law

ECOLEX
ECOLEX is a comprehensive internet based resource on environmental law and policy operated jointly by UNEP (U.N. Environment Programme), IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). It contains the environmental law information holdings of these partner organizations including: multilateral and bilateral treaties; national legislation; European Union legal instruments; judicial decisions; soft law and other internationally non-binding policy instruments and technical guidance; and law and policy literature.

    E.  Criminal Law

Buffalo Criminal Law Center
Collection of criminal law resources on the internet

    F.  Food

FAOLEX 
Comprehensive and up-to-date computerized legislative database; one of the world's largest electronic collections of national laws and regulations on food, agriculture and renewable natural resources.

    G.  Insolvency

Global Insolvency Law Database
The GILD is the World Bank's legal portal for insolvency and creditor rights (ICR) matters.

​IV. Treaties

Frequently Cited Treaties
This website helps you save time by providing correct Blue Book citations for the most frequently cited treaties.

Hague Conference on Private International Law  
Important collection of treaties relating to litigation, family, estate and other private international law matters with comprehensive status information; the U.S. is an original member of the Hague Conference.

The Multilaterals Project
The Multilaterals Project, begun in 1992, is an ongoing project at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts to make available the texts of international multilateral conventions and other instruments. Although the project was initiated to improve public access to environmental agreements, the collection today also includes treaties in the fields of human rights, commerce and trade, laws of war and arms control, and other areas.  Most of the texts date from 1945 or later, but the collection also includes historical texts, from the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia to the Covenant of the League of Nations.

State Department Website  
Indispensable source of current U.S. Treaty information; look at the information provided by the Office of Legal Affairs (under Treaty Affairs) and also the Bureau of Consular Affairs (Information for Americans); alternatively use the alphabetical subject index at the State.gov home page or do a google search to find specific information at this website (i.e. service process Kuwait) 

United Nations Treaty Collection 
The UN Treaty Collection is now available free of charge at the official United Nations website. The UN Treaty Collection provide digital access to official print treaty publications including United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) and its precursor the League of Nations Treaty Series. In addition, Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary General (MTDSG), an annual publication which is necessary for checking treaty status, is available at the UN Treaty Collection website. A further updating tool, the MS database (Monthly Statements of Treaties and International Agreements) at the website is available in electronic format only. The MS database allows researchers to check treaty status beyond the latest edition of the MTDSG.  

​V. Foreign Laws

Foreign Law Guide
Electronic incarnation of the venerable Reynolds & Flores loose-leaf set Foreign Law: Current Sources of Codes and Basic Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World; this subscription website represents the gold standard in foreign legal research, but is only available for a fee; it provides the most comprehensive, in depth coverage available of high quality current sources, both print and electronic, of foreign laws in their original language and English translation.  Click on "Subscriber Login" to access content.

Global Legal Information Network
As stated by the Library of Congress, GLIN is a "public database of official texts of laws, regulations, judicial decisions, and other complementary legal sources contributed by governmental agencies and international organizations...GLIN members contribute the full texts of their published documents to the database in their original languages. Each document is accompanied by a summary in English..."

German Law: Resources in English
Sponsored by the University of Saarbrucken; Some of the information may be dated due to unavoidable delay in English translation

Institute for Transnational Law at University of Texas, Austin
This Website is a source of French, German, Italian, Austrian and Israeli legal materials relating to the areas of constitutional, administrative, contract and tort law in English translation. Translations of German and French case law are also available.

JuriGlobe World Legal Systems
This Website provides a geographical representation by means of a color coded map of the world of the six major legal systems of the world: Common, Civil, Customary, Muslim, Talmudic and Mixed. One may click on the map or browse the alphabetical list by country name in order to find out what legal system prevails in a particular country. A description of the characteristics of each system is also provided.

Legifrance
Legifrance is the official French language website which provides access to French legislation. Legifrance has recently been expanded to include English and Spanish translations of current texts of a range of codes and modern consolidations. These translations are complete and consolidated to date.

World Legal Information Institute
WorldLII is collaborative project which provides free access to the major laws of countries around the world in English. The project is coordinated by the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AusLII) a joint facility of the UTS and UNSW Faculties of Law.

​VI. Foreign Case Law

Global Courts
Supreme Court Decisions from around the World

Justis International Law Reports
International Law Reports (ILR) are now available electronically from Justis Publishing in the U.K. ILR contains court decisions and arbitrations from international courts and national courts all around the world on important public international law topics (i.e. international boundaries, state and diplomatic immunity, war, terrorism, international criminal law, investor state disputes and refugee law). All decisions are available in authoritative English translation. ILR coverage dates from 1919 to present.

​VII. European Law

Europa
Europa is the official website of the EU. It is a convenient gateway to basic information about Europe including history, key facts and figures, EU symbols and EU jargon. There is a link as well to treaties and laws.

Essential European Union Law Websites  
This listing was compiled by Ann Sweeney, EU Librarian

EUR-Lex
EUR-Lex is the official portal to EU law. It provides free access to EU legal sources including the Official Journal of the European Union as well as the treaties, legislation, case-law and legislative proposals.

Cases    

VIII. International Organizations(IGOs)

a. United Nations

Official Documents of the United Nations
The ODS database covers all types of official United Nations documentation, beginning in 1993. Older UN documents are, however, added to the system on a daily basis. ODS also provides access to the resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council from 1946 onwards.

UNBISnet
UNBISnet is the catalogue of United Nations(UN) documents and publications indexed by the UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva. Also included are commercial publications and other non-UN sources held in the collection of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library. The coverage of UNBISnet is from 1979 onward. However, older documents are being added to the catalogue on a regular basis. UNBISnet also provides instant access to a growing number of full text resources in the six official languages of the UN (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish), including resolutions adopted by the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council from 1946 onward.

U.N. Documentation Research Guide
This guide is designed for researchers and information professionals with an interest in United Nations documentation. It presents an overview of the various types of documents and publications issued by the Organization (e.g, reports, resolutions, meeting records, sales publications, press releases) and gives guidance on how to work with them.
The Research Guide also provides information on actions taken by the General Assembly as well as the Security Council and introduces researchers to major fields of UN activities: environment, human rights, international law and peacekeeping.

 Dag Hammarskjold Library
The Dag Hammarskjold Library maintains an archival collection of United Nations documents and publications and in-house production and processing of data, for use by delegates, missions and United Nations staff members, as well as by specialized researchers. In addition, the Library oversees a system of depository libraries worldwide for dissemination of United Nations information. Links to the most important U.N. research tools and databases can all be found easily at the Library’s home page.

VIII.  ​Trial Subscriptions

Trade Law Guide

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